Trump Threatens Iran’s ‘Pickaxe Mountain’ as Tehran Denies Nuclear Work
President Trump has warned that the United States will strike a fortified site south of Natanz known as “Pickaxe Mountain”, which Western intelligence believes shelters Iran’s centrifuge programme. Tehran on Wednesday denied conducting any nuclear activity at the complex. Iran’s top joint military command has threatened to target American and allied interests across the region should its nuclear facilities be hit.
Built roughly a hundred metres into a mountain, the complex — construction of which began in 2020 as a replacement centrifuge-assembly plant — would be the single most escalatory target available to Washington, and neither the United States nor Israel has struck it. Israeli assessments hold that Iran moved centrifuges, and possibly enriched uranium, there last autumn; Tehran insists its programme is peaceful. A strike would test the durability of the stalled diplomatic track and risk a wider regional war. Watch the response from the International Atomic Energy Agency and whether Iran hardens its posture.